ABSTRACT
The army of police informers that covers the Soviet Union in a tight net precludes the formation of intermediate and independent associations that, if not controlled or destroyed, could challenge Soviet power. The limited impact of the abolishment of terror on the stability of the Soviet system points also in the direction of recognizing that Soviet stability both and even in the Stalinist period did and does rest on factors other than mass terror and a highly coercive police state. The Soviet regime is highly repressive with regard to the political and spiritual aspirations of its citizens whenever they deviate from the established norms. Yet the most dramatic phenomenon of the post-Stalin Soviet Union is the appearance of dissident movements of various colorations and nonmaterial aspirations. In the Soviet Union in the post-Stalin era, the will to power and the commitment to the existing system of the political elite and leadership seems to remain unshaken.
